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‘What about a school at Hampstead?’ The school recommended was a modern type of school, there was no educational pressurising of children, each child was allowed to follow his own (or her own, for it was co-educational) bent. I was very excited by this idea, it seemed the very school for my son. I had seen a famous author, on television, talking about the school. His son was a pupil there, along with the children of other artists, actors, etc. They prided themselves on being a classless community, or so I gathered. Non-religious, non-political, no pressurising to do this or that. Children did well there, for they were free to come and go as they pleased, and, being free, they did better than they would have done in a regimented atmosphere.
    I was so sure my son would be accepted that I ignored the first, faint stirrings of all-not-being-well augured for the future. Our charming lady educationalist, who became such a staunch friend of William’s, had great difficulty in obtaining an interview for us at the school. ‘Individualist?’ queried authority at this progressive school. ‘In what way?’ Apparently they were protective of their pupils, for they were children of well-known personalities. However, assured that my son was not a fearful character, an appointment was made, and mother and son travelled to this new type of school which, I was sure, was to be the means of starting my son on a life of satisfaction, happiness and success. I thought we looked the part of the upper-crust mother and son, he in his grey flannel suit and non-winkle-picker shoes, me in my green Harris tweed reversible overcoat. We only needed a shooting-stick to complete the public-school open-day image.
    We went down the driveway of the school and must have passed near the kitchens, for a dreadful smell of stale cabbage assailed our nostrils. It really was putrid and William said he hoped, if it was a free-will school, that forced feeding was not on the menu. No one seemed to know anything about us, and in the end an arty-crafty-looking lady, her hands full of coloured bands and wearing a whistle round her neck on a piece of red tape, deposited us in a sort of hut, an annexe of the school, which contained a desk covered with an untidy litter of papers, books, plimsolls, etc., a bench, and an odd assortment of office chairs, deck chairs and sports paraphernalia. She then galloped off blowing her whistle, surrounded by a bevy of girls in shorts. She called to a group of boys on the way, ‘Anyone for netball?’ I thought she was a bit like Joyce Grenfell doing her sports mistress act, but it obviously was a non-authoritarian sort of school, I was pleased to see, for the teacher did not mind at all when one girl opted out of netball at the last minute. The girl said she’d rather play with Anthony – at least, that is what it sounded like to me – but at any rate it seemed sweetness and light, if a bit disorganised. I was amused at the thought of William’s old headmistress amidst that gaggle of pupils who couldn’t seem to make up their minds what they wanted to do.
    After a long time, when the smell of stale cabbage was beginning to make me feel sick, a man appeared in the annexe. He introduced himself as a housemaster and chatted to William and me. I felt we’d made no impression of our eagerness to join, for he remained aloof and appeared not to be listening. He then intimated that William would have to be, intellectually, up to the educational standard for his age and took him off to his study for a sort of entrance examination. I was pleased we had given our children only one Christian name each. Chas at the time had insisted on this frugality of names as he’d got so fed up with writing three or four, and once, six, Christian names on the insurance application forms for his ex-clients, when he was a man from the Pru. My instinct, however, told me that my son would not become a pupil